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Noah stared at the page in front of him. It was a simple social media page, and honestly Noah does most of his socializing online anyway. Yet the page was very disquieting today. For one thing, ever since he’d been on Total Drama his social media had been swamped by fans. Angry fans, fangirls, people with crushes on him. But the worst in Noah’s opinion were the shippers.
The shippers were always digging, trying to find new information that confirmed their ship was real. Noah thinking shipping actual people in real life is in poor taste in itself. Actually badgering the person into revealing aspects of their personal life in the vain hope that it might be used as ‘evidence’ for their own inane ships was another thing entirely. Like seriously?
It had gotten to the point where he’d abandoned his original social media, making use of an alt account under a different name, and providing no other information. He’s convinced that if he were to share even his date of birth the fandom would somehow use that to reveal his true identity.
He’s on his alt account now, and he’s staring down the current bane of his existence, the relationship status bar. It’s on single. It’s always been on single, just as his original account had been. He wants to update it, as he’s begun to date.
If you’d told him he’d start dating Trent after the first season of Total Drama, Noah would have called you crazy. Yet somehow over the course of their time on the aftermath together, they had grown close. Noah was a source of stability and comfort in Trent’s life at the moment. The whole thing with Gwen had really thrown him for a loop, not helped by Geoff and the aftermath making a show out of it.
Trent was also a source of comfort for Noah. With all the insane cast members of the show being a lot to handle, it was nice to have someone who was relatively normal. Trent was generally a calm presence. Sure sometimes his ocd could get out of hand, but that was generally when he was under immense pressure. Like being the leader of a team against his girlfriend.
The point was that they really helped even each other out. So after that dating was a no brainer. They’d been going strong for about a month now. Which was in Noah’s own opinion more than enough time to be official.
Now Trent hadn’t said anything to him, but Noah had noticed that Trent had updated his socials to reflect the fact that he was in a relationship the moment they’d started to date. Not that he revealed who the person he was dating was. At first it hadn’t bothered him, but slowly he’d started to feel guilty about not updating his own status.
The problem was that even though he’d changed to a completely different account that no one had realized was his, as evidenced by his inbox not being flooded by various fans, he still felt like everyone was watching is social media. Including the shippers.
Noah knows that they aren’t, but it still feels like the moment that he updates his status they’ll find him and swarm his inbox with a bunch of questions. Who was he dating? Why? Was it specifically the person that they shipped him with? If not then why not? That person was obviously the best choice.
He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to deal with the world judging his choice of date. Or the passive aggression from all the fangirls that wanted him to date someone else. So here he sits starting at the relationship status part of his profile trying to get up the gumption to change it.
“You know you don’t have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable.” Trent said as he entered the room.
“Don’t have to do what?” Noah tried to play off. He hadn’t told Trent about updating his status. He hadn’t even told him it was bothering him.
“Noah, you've been staring at that screen for the past half hour. I had plenty of time to see what you’re doing.” Trent pointed out.
“Oh.” He sighed.
“Look its not a big deal. It’s not like anyone knows who I’m dating, so no one would notice if my partner hadn’t updated his status.” Trent shrugged.
Noah huffed. “It’s not that I’m uncomfortable about us. Or even about making things official, I just don’t want to be harassed by the fandom.”
Trent nodded. “I get that. Those fangirls are really annoying.”
“But, I’m not on my official social media, I haven’t been on that in ages. I’m on my alt account. An alt account that no one has figured out is mine. And I want to update my status. I want to show you how much I care. Its an expression of love Trent. And It’s one I’ve been putting off for too long.” Noah said.
Slowly but surely he clicked his mouse. Then he moved it down to the status, in relationship. He closed his eyes and clicked again. Then quickly saved the change before the could change his mind.
He held his breath as Trent squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. He braced himself for the inevitable swarming of his inbox. But as he sat there, that moment never came. He exhaled.
“It’s okay.” Noah gasped. “It’s all okay! No crazy fangirls. No questions about my personal life. Nothing.”
Trent chuckled. “Yeah. It seems like the fandom has not been alerted to your alt account.”
“Thank goodness for that.” Noah sighed happily.
“Well now that you’ve finally done it, why don’t we go out to eat. My treat.” Trent smiled.
“That sounds good. Let’s just be careful. The last thing I need is celebrity manhunt to find out about us.” Noah said.
“We’ll keep our eyes out.” Trent promised.
Being famous sucks. No one will ever leave you alone, and everyone has their opinion on your actions. But Noah feels content in the knowledge that no one knows about his alt account where he can be himself without judgement.
Where he can date and not have everyone want to know everything about it.